Back in the (Weaving) Saddle Again

I've been weaving over 50 years, although some years have been quite sparse in terms of production.  I have way too many fiber related hobbies and I am easily distracted and go down the newest "rabbit hole" for periods of time.   Sometimes, I only briefly go down a particular new creative rabbit hole, but often it becomes a new passion that I carry forward.  That is what happened with weaving, beading, and art quilting.  And of course, knitting, one of my first fiber "loves" always remains something in my creative arsenal.    

I have MANY (some would say too many) looms--2 inkle looms, a long skinny homemade bead loom (which I'd never used until recently...read on!), a simple tapestry loom, a four harness table loom I inherited from my father, and two floor looms (one 42" 8 harness Studio loom and a 26" 4 harness Gilmore that my friend Sharon gifted me).  I can do sectional warping on my large floor loom so I also have an AVL warping wheel.   All this weaving equipment requires a whole other room in my house aside from my studio.   To round it out, I have a couple of pin loms/potholder looms as well.  You can see that I am well covered in the weaving equipment arena.  

Early in my weaving career I completed a couple of tapestries.  The first one is a large piece that was made on a simple wood frame loom with nails.  

This was a fun project that I wove on my first floor loom using tapestry techniques:  

Fast forward a few decades and a few years ago I borrowed a friend's tapestry pipe loom and did a small project which became this coaster.  I didn't catch the tapestry bug at that time so it was a one-off.  

I've also done beading for about 10 years.  I've played with different techniques and bead types but the majority of my beading has been with Peyote stitch.  

After drooling over my friend, Sarah's Mirrix loom, I started exploring and found this cute little beaded tapestry called Art Deco Squares on  the Mirrix website.  I decided I could try making it on the homemade bead loom I already had and since I have tons of Delica beads, this was a perfect project to see if I would like loom beading.  Well, I was instantly hooked and shortly after I purchased my own Mirrix Little Guy loom, and started back down the tapestry and bead loom rabbit hole in earnest.  

I've finished my first bead tapestry (below).  Don't you think it looks a bit like a little village? Completing it has gotten me interested in making my own designs for loom beading. I'm currently using Loomerly to play with this idea, but also exploring other apps/programs for bead design.  

What's next...I'm just finishing warping the my Mirrix Little Guy loom for tapestry.  I may have to get another loom just for beads!  

A Pattern Is Merely a Suggestion

My knitting friend Barbara likes to say "A pattern is just a suggestion" and this vest project of mine conforms with that idea.  I started with my acquaintance with Heidi Emmett and finding this book she wrote (it's out of print) and then finding the NewYork skyline panel (also out of production) on Ebay.  

I didn't want a vest that was open on the sides like Heidi's so I pulled out a pattern I'd used previously to make a quilted vest.  

I found some upholstery fabric at the thrift store that was interesting on both sides, then cut the main pieces from it.  I began auditioning other fabric pieces to get a pleasant layout. 

Once satisfied with the arrangement, I added some light weight batting and used a decorative stitch on my machine to attach the pieces.  Originally I thought I would use this project to "sample" a number of decorative stitches.  After all I had gone to the trouble of making books with all the stitches in my machine a few months ago. 

After stitching the sample on the right and looking at my vest layout,  I decided that using multiple stitches on the vest was going to be too distracting and decided to just go with one stitch.  I did embellish the vest with some ribbon, hand quilting, and two buttons/loops.  I'm happy with the results and I'll be showing it to my Cloth Creations study group in April as part of our Vest Challenge.  My quilt guild is also having a panel challenge and I think the vest may be shown for that as well.  

Cactus Flower Collage

This piece has provided me with several lessons and took much longer than expected to complete.   I was very frustrated with my machine when I tried to free motion quilt it.  I got many skipped stitches.  I tried different thread, different needles, and many other "fixes" but nothing seemed to work. However I persisted and I eventually solved the problem but it was too late for this creation.  The addition of some beads and hand embroidery, which I had already planned, made the skipped stitches less noticeable.  

My artistic friends who helped me think about how to finish the piece suggested extending some of the leaves/shoots into the frame space (on the left and bottom) which I think improved it although if you look closely you can see where I added fabric for these parts. After deciding to frame it using stretcher bars and ordering what I thought were the appropriate size bars,  I realized that I needed to make it "bigger" so there would be enough fabric to wrap around and staple to the frame.   This entailed trying to match the brown paint I had originally used on the "frame" portion.   Finally, the staple gun we have is not my friend-- it is very hard to depress-- but I got help from J to finish the stapling.  

Now it's found a place to hang in my entry and I'm very happy with it.  I just need to make a label to put on the back.    

English Paper Piecing Part 1

Last Spring, I had my first adventures with English paper piecing (EPP).    This is a form of hand quilting that dates back to the 1700's and involves using paper (or template plastic) pieces to create intricate shapes that are joined together. Small pieces of fabric in various shapes are basted or glued around the templates and then the pieces are joined with hand stitching.  Usually the paper templates are removed (and even re-used especially during austere times) although some old quilts have been dated owing to the newspaper or other printed material inside.  Hexagaons (or hexies) are one of the most common shapes in EPP so I started with those.  First, I made a notebook cover with somewhat larger hexagons.  Later, I boldly moved on to smaller hexagons to make a needle case.  

Apparently my adventures with EPP weren't over because I recently got the urge to make a lap quilt with a more ambitious design that involves 4 point stars and octagons.  I was able to enlist the help of my Scan N Cut machine to cut most of the templates and fabric pieces but it was still a days long process.  

I don't have many photos of the early phases of this project, but I was challenged by not having a Design Board or Wall to lay out and arrange the pieces, so my next task involved repurposing a large piece of insulation board I had for felting by covering it with a flannel backed tablecloth.  It was BARELY large enough for the design.  After laying out my design I discarded a few colors I had selected for the 4 point stars, arranged them in what I thought was a pleasing arrangement.  I was worried as I transferred pieces from the board to my work area to assemble the stars that I would lose track of the color arrangement, so I took photos to guide my work.  

Once I had assembled 49 stars from 196 pieces of colorful fabric and was beginning the process of joining stars and hexagons, I discovered that I could label each star with the row and position number written on the back of the top of the star, so I could more easily assemble the pieces as planned.  This was a great discovery because it renders my project much more portable and now I can work on it away from my design board.  

As the project proceeds, I hope to share more of my insights and photos of the process. In the meantime, I have learned several things that have helped me:

The "Knicker Knot" was a game changer.  Thank you Sue Daley and Missouri Star for posting this great video.  I LOVE this knot for EPP.  

I'm undecided about using Templar templates vs paper templates.  It seems harder to stitch the pieces together that have the plastic in them.  (I ran out of Templar sheets so I had to resort to cutting some paper templates for this project).  

Good needles and thread are essential for this technique.  Fortunately I found a tip about always threading your needle from the thread end that comes off he spool first. That has greatly reduced tangles.  Why did I not know that sooner???  I am using Thread Heaven to condition the Aurifil 50 weight cotton. So far my favorite needle is a size 9 Milliner's by Bohin.  

More to come

Recent projects

I've been busy with projects, but have had no time for posting.  So here's a little photo catch up.   

Embroidered shoes:  

Knitting:

Urth Orbit

Kaleidescope

Art quilts progress:

I plan to embroider and bead this Inktense on fabric piece I did in a class a few years ago.    I'm just getting started.  So far I've practiced the Colonial Stitch and Drizzle Stitch.  

Fish Hook Cactus quilt, raw edge applique.  It's now stitched down and awaiting further embellishment/fnishing.  

Old Family Quilt Repurposed

I've been working on this for a while.  Like many of my projects, deciding what I wanted to do and developing a plan took longer than the execution.  I was given an old family quilt in January.  And it has a story.  My sister and I were both given quilts from our grandmother when we left Canada (at age 6 for me). Mine was a red print and hers was a blue paisley like design, both made with solid pieces of fabric and tied.  Little did we know at the time that old family quilts lived under those printed fabric covers.  By the time I acquired the remains of my sister's quilt (and that was how why I would describe it) all the blue fabric covering the original quilt was gone.  There were holes and tears and worn spots.  It was really beyond repair.  

I wanted to do something to preserve the memory, if not the substance,  of the quilt and explored various options.  I decided to use some of the "best" parts that remained and make mementos for family members and something for myself.  The mementos will be shared here once I gift them to their recipients.  The vest is what I made for myself.  

I used this free pattern from Purl Soho: https://www.purlsoho.com/create/2014/02/20/corinnes-thread-quilted-vest/. First I washed the quilt by hand add Oxi clean to try and remove the yellowness.  It worked remarkably well but unfortunately it also took some of the original color (green and brown blocks became very faded).  Then, It took a considerable effort to cut this out using the best parts of the quilt.  I still had to take apart other sections and add new squares back to my vest where the fabric was the most worn, faded, or totally disintegrated.  

I added the pockets (every vest NEEDS pockets, don't you think?) and handstitching to give a little more interest.  For some reason after that, my vest went into UFO pile or timeout for many months.  This week, I resurrected the project, made and added the binding, including binding the inside seams).  Then I used my embroidery machine and a Mini Quilt Design from Designs by JuJu to make the little pin. I'm undecided about the placement of the pin, it may go up higher on one side.  But I'm very pleased that I was able to make something I will actually wear from this old family treasure.  

The pins were  so much fun to embroider (I made two today), I think I will have to make more, perhaps for our Quilt Guild's sale in March.